Travelers be warned: Misconduct cases among airport screeners jumped 26% in a recent three-year period. But the chance of an airport screener pilfering a laptop computer from your bag is still slimmer than winning the lottery, according to the union representing Transportation Security Administration workers. The debate over the integrity of TSA screeners heated up last week with the release of an audit by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which found 9,622 cases of employee misconduct among TSA workers from fiscal 2010 through 2012, with a 26% increase in incidents over that time.

Burbank's Bob Hope Airport has become the first airport in the state to adopt an airport-wide loyalty program. The effort lets passengers who spend money on food, parking or souvenirs at the airport earn points toward airline and hotel loyalty programs. The program, which was announced Friday, is an effort by airport officials to recover some of the passenger traffic that has been lost over the last few years. Bob Hope Airport drew 5.9 million passengers in 2007, before the economic crisis lead to a drop in travel spending.

A man was taken into custody Tuesday night after he plowed his vehicle through a gate at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank. The man rammed through Gate 120 and smashed into a walkway railing around 9:20 p.m., airport spokeswoman Lucy Burghdorf said. She said police responded within a minute and apprehended the man, who appeared to be under the influence of a substance. The scene is near the cargo area of the airport and did not affect any flights, Burghdorf said. ALSO: LAFD Chief Brian Cummings says he wants to keep his job Three firefighters injured in three-alarm blaze in City of Industry Victory for veterans -- WWII barracks at O.C. Fairgrounds to be saved twitter.com/LAJourno robert.lopez@latimes.com

Bob Hope Airport in Burbank saw the number of passengers who passed through its gates rise slightly in May -- the second month this year to show an increase. The airport handled 345,997 passengers in May, a 0.4% increase compared to 344,566 in May 2012, according to statistics released by the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority last week. This uptick came two months after a 0.27% increase in March, which was followed by a 2.4% drop in April. There were double-digit declines the first two months of the year.

More than 200 people were briefly evacuated from a section of Bob Hope Airport on Thursday after a “mixup” at a security checkpoint may have allowed a passenger through without being properly screened, an official said. Passengers were evacuated from the concourse, or the airline gate area of Terminal A - which includes Southwest and U.S. Airways -- at about 11:15 a.m. and were brought back around to the security line, where they were re-screened, said airport spokesman Victor Gill.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has agreed to spend $1.7 million to assist Bob Hope Airport's efforts for an ambitious train connection project. The money - a local match for a decades-old $4.3-million federal grant - will help accelerate construction of an airport Metrolink station along the Antelope Valley Line, among other improvement projects, airport officials said. The funds will come from Measure R, a half-cent sales tax approved by county voters in 2008 to pay for transportation projects.

Airline mergers, a deep recession and surging fuel prices have led to sharp cuts in airline service around the country. Hardest hit: medium-size airports. Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, LA/Ontario International Airport and other mid-size airports lost an average of 26.2% of their flights from 2007to 2012, according to a new study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's International Center for Air Transportation. The cuts are a result of airlines eliminating less-profitable routes and focusing on more popular, high-profit routes, the report said.

Law enforcement authorities are beefing up security across Southern California in the wake of Monday's explosions at the Boston Marathon. At Los Angeles International Airport officials are increasing checkpoints at entrances and where crowds gather. More bomb-sniffing dogs will be on patrol inside and outside the airport. The Los Angeles Police Department is increasing security at Dodger games. Orange County officials plan more patrols at sporting and entertainment events. PHOTOS: Explosions at Boston Marathon Two explosions rocked the finish line area of the Boston Marathon, killing two people and injuring dozens, according to the city's police Twitter account.

Readers' travel tips keep giving Regarding "Before You Go," Feb. 17: In response to Sheila Maynes' tip, "Scan your passport (main and endorsement pages and any visas), your birth certificate, airline tickets or vouchers, hotel and car booking confirmations. Email them to yourself," you might want to take extra security measures using WinZip or WinRar. Zip and Rar files do about the same thing, which is to shrink your files, but they use different math functions to do the compression.